


Have This

by meansgirl



Series: and it feels like love [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Flashbacks, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-08 00:28:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20984951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meansgirl/pseuds/meansgirl
Summary: Mycroft and Greg should have been together, but a perfect storm of bad luck and circumstances ensured that they weren't. More than twenty years later, they start to figure things out.Follows up through the first two seasons-ish of BBC Sherlock.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This won't make much sense if you have not read the first fic in the series!
> 
> As with the first story, this one exists ONLY because I was able to rely on the support of hoomhum, and the beta prowess of beltainefaerie. You are both amazing. Thank you so much. 
> 
> See the notes at the end for mild warnings.

**DECEMBER, 2009**

Mycroft was beginning to tire of Christmas carols. His office, of course, was an oasis, with nary a sprig of mistletoe or red ribbon in sight. The Diogenes also remained a fortress of silence, but Mycroft loathed every moment spent there, and had for as long as he could remember. His memory of the place stretched into childhood, and Mycroft had never been able to shake the jealous feeling that had come over him when he’d realized that Sherlock would never be dragged along to the club with Uncle Rudy. Sherlock was constitutionally incapable of silence even once old enough, presumably, to control himself, and no one ever seemed concerned with forcing him to do so. 

The oppressive hush of the club had chafed at Mycroft on some level as a child, and even past the age of forty when he entered those doors and the bubble of silence beyond, he had the indescribable urge to shout just to see what might happen. Of course, he could never. But he suspected he would always  _ want _ to. 

Mycroft normally spent only slightly more time at the club than was necessary to maintain a presence, but he spent quite a lot of his time there in the weeks leading up to the holiday out of necessity. Mummy had started making noises around October, and by carefully scheduling his overseas trips to coincide with his parents’ periods at home, Mycroft had managed to dodge her attempts at planning a family Christmas this year. Seeking solace in his office in the bowels of the club, where mobile reception was poor and the number for the hard line to his desk was unknown to her, achieved that goal once she cottoned on to his other methods. It also muffled the relentless Christmas cheer that rankled Mycroft beyond the club’s doors. 

On this particular day, Mycroft had an appointment with Greg for a drink and a chat. He had been careful not to look forward to it  _ too _ much, considering the likelihood that one or both of their schedules would delay it, and considering that it was entirely inappropriate for him to look on these semi-regular meetings as if they were  _ dates.  _ Still, Mycroft liked the rare appearances Greg made at the club. They let Mycroft forget where he was entirely for an hour or two at a time.

Greg arrived on time, and he seemed to be humming under his breath a Christmas song. Not a carol, but a pop ballad of some kind. The attendant who escorted him to the door of Mycroft’s office looked utterly scandalized at the barely-there sound emitting from the back of the man’s throat. Mycroft suppressed his glee and stood, waiting for the door to shut before speaking. 

“You’re doing that on purpose,” he accused. 

Greg grinned. “Doing what?”

Mycroft shook his head and rounded the desk, shaking Greg’s outstretched hand warmly with both of his own. “You look well,” he said. “Much improved from last time.”

“Well last time you saw me I was covered in river muck and screaming at your brother, wasn’t I? Not at my best.” Greg shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the coat rack by the door, then paused consideringly before removing his suit jacket and hanging that up as well. 

Mycroft shrugged one shoulder and studiously avoided staring at the line of Greg’s shoulders in his dress shirt. “You also had a terrible cold,” he remarked, thinking privately that, red nose and mud and furious eyebrows and all, Greg had looked nearly perfect the last time they met. He shoved that away and gestured to one of the chairs near the fireplace before heading over to the small bar he kept well stocked. 

“I did,” Greg murmured, and Mycroft heard him settling into a chair while Mycroft poured two tumblers of scotch. “Not surprising you could tell, I suppose.”

Mycroft said nothing, just turned around with the glasses and handed one off to Greg before taking his own seat. He very carefully didn’t analyze Greg’s clothing, his hair, the job he did shaving that morning. Mycroft enforced this rule with himself as a matter of respect, as well as self-preservation. Years ago, he had slipped and read the marital discord in Greg’s shirt cuffs, and had felt wickedly  _ glad _ for it, even  _ hopeful. _ The taste of shame over it lingered even now, and so he turned it off as much as he could, and said, “How are Katie and Patrick?”

“Ah,” Greg sighed, getting comfortable in his chair. “Gorgeous, of course. Katie’s gone and started what I guess is the closest thing we’ll get to a punk phase. But it’s different from mine, weirder music. She’s… a bit difficult to figure out, my girl, but we’re soldiering on. Patrick, though, he’s in that lovely curious phase. Everything is magical to a four year old.” 

“Wonderful,” Mycroft murmured, and sipped his scotch. “If you’re in need of tickets to any concerts that might appeal to the average teenaged malcontent, do let me know. Now is the time when little favors such as that are offered left, center, and right.”

Greg snorted. “You’ll take advantage of the toadying political masses so I can get a good dad ribbon and sit through some horrific scream-y music for three hours?”

“Of course,” Mycroft replied, hiding a smirk behind his hand. “Anything you need.”

“I’ll let you know,” Greg deadpanned. “And yourself? Holiday plans with dear ickle brother?”

“God, no. Nor with our parents, if I can manage it. A quiet couple of days for me, thank heavens. I spent last year with all three of them. Generally I manage to only do so every second or third year.”

“You can’t spend Christmas alone.”

Mycroft smiled at the concern and sipped his scotch, shrugging again and electing to say nothing. 

Greg sighed. “When it comes to self deprivation, you’re a bloody professional.”

_ If you only knew, _ Mycroft thought, and said, “Tell me what you’ll do for your holiday. What have you got lined up for Patrick? He’s about the right age for a chemistry set, yes?”

Greg barked a laugh. “If he was a Holmes, maybe!” 

Mycroft listened to him detail the ins and outs of a Lestrade family Christmas morning, and carefully did not allow himself to notice that Greg never mentioned his wife. At least, not until later, when he could sit in the dark and hate himself for thinking about it. 

  
  


**NOVEMBER 2009**

A month earlier, Greg had arrived at his office after midnight cold, exhausted, and desperate to at least get the basic paperwork started so he could sleep beyond six the next morning, only to find a haggard Mycroft Holmes waiting in the visitor’s chair in front of Greg’s desk.

“Let me guess,” Greg groaned as he hung up his coat. “Your brother.”

“No,” Mycroft sighed. “I was here to speak with a colleague of yours about a case in which I have a professional interest.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“As you know, murder does not only take place during normal business hours,” Mycroft replied with a roll of his eyes. “Since I was here, and since I overheard that you were en route from a combination robbery-stabbing, I thought I might stop by and share a cup of terrible tea with you. 

Greg paused, noticing the cup of said terrible tea still steaming on his desk. “Oh,” he said. “Lovely.”

Mycroft tipped his head. “I thought it would be.”

Greg reached for the cup, then sat beside Mycroft in the second visitor’s chair. “Long day for you, then.”

“A long several days,” Mycroft replied, leaning his chin on his fist, his elbow on the arm of his chair. “I can’t remember what day it was the last time I went home. And now a death under suspicious circumstances. I’m never making it to my bed at this rate.”

“You need to,” Greg admonished. “You’re not a robot.”

“Nor are you,” Mycroft said pointedly. 

Greg lifted his styrofoam teacup. “Cheers to that.”

They nudged cups and fell into a tired silence. “Tell me something that has nothing to do with crime or the government,” Mycroft said after a while. 

Greg sipped his tea and thought for a moment. “Katie did a dance in her school talent show. Got the video on my phone. Wanna see?”

“I would like nothing more,” Mycroft said, getting that sweet look he got sometimes when Greg mentioned the kids. 

Greg set his tea down on the floor and scooted his chair closer to Mycroft’s until they were elbow-to-elbow, then fished his phone out of his pocket. 

“Now,” Greg said. “She’s gorgeous, my girl, but has the coordination of a baby giraffe. So. Brace yourself.”

Mycroft chuckled, low and tired. “I can’t imagine that’s true. From what you’ve told me, she is in fact the perfect human specimen.”

Greg laughed. “Well that can be true, and she can still wobble like her knees don’t work when she tries to dance. Here, watch.”

Their heads nearly touched as Greg pressed play on the video, the tinny strains of a Lady Gaga song mixed with scattered school auditorium applause starting even before the lights came up over the stage. 

They watched the video mostly in silence, only the sounds of Greg’s occasional half-chuckles breaking the quiet, until Mycroft murmured, “She is lovely, Greg. Confident. Like you.”

“Thanks,” Greg said softly. 

The video ended and Greg flicked the button to put his phone to sleep. He glanced up at Mycroft’s soft-eyed face and smiled self-deprecatingly.

“Sorry,” he said. “I know those sorts of things are only interesting to parents, really.”

“Perhaps that’s true most of the time,” Mycroft said. “But I could never turn down the opportunity to see the most talented, intelligent, beautiful girl in all of London perform so enthusiastically.” 

“You softie,” Greg teased. 

Mycroft just shrugged one shoulder and smiled softly back at him for a long, drawn out moment, before he gracefully drew away with a regretful sigh. “I should go, let you take care of your paperwork.”

“Go home,” Greg said, stretching in his seat as Mycroft stood to go. “Go to bed. The murder will still be a murder tomorrow.”

Mycroft turned at the door. “You should talk.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Greg replied, already standing behind his desk. “Do as I say, not as I do, how about that?”

Mycroft lingered for a beat longer in the doorway, eyes dark with exhaustion, but with a half-quirk to his mouth. Greg smiled back, and thought how nice it would be if Mycroft just stayed and sat with him while he worked. He gave himself a little shake and said, “Goodnight.”

Mycroft’s fingers tapped twice at the door jamb before he spoke softly. “Goodnight, Greg.”

**DECEMBER 2009**

Mycroft called on Christmas evening. Greg’s stomach lurched with worry at the sight of the name on his mobile screen, sure for a moment that Sherlock had gone back to his old ways or something, but when he answered with a terse “Lestrade,” Mycroft was quick to calm his fears. 

“Simply calling to wish you a happy holiday,” he said. “Was Katherine pleased with her tickets?”

Greg let out a whooshing sigh of relief. “Yes, very much, “ he said. Tina caught his eye from the kitchen and he waved, mouthing  _ nothing, nothing, all fine,  _ as he headed for the front door, snagging his coat from the hook. “Thank you again, she nearly displayed a bloody  _ emotion, _ she was so pleased.”

As Greg shut the door behind him and dug for his cigarettes, Mycroft huffed a half-laugh over the line. “It was no trouble,” he said, sounding pleased. “Congratulations on eliciting such a response.”

“Yeah, well.” Greg paused to light up. “I ought to make you sit through the show with her. You’ll rethink your congrats then.”

“Yes, darling, go with the strange man to the… Remind me of the name of this act?”

“Er…My Chemical Romance.”

“The My— What, really?”

“Oh, like we were any better,” Greg scoffed. “We’ve no room to talk.”

Mycroft chuckled. “I suppose not. What sort of band name is The The, anyway?”

Greg hummed his agreement and squatted down, then thought better of it and the effect it would have on his knees, and sat his arse on the cold stone steps. “What the fuck  _ is _ a psychedelic fur, yeah?”

Mycroft was quiet for a moment, and Greg could hear the clink of ice in a glass. He thought yearningly of the half glass of wine he’d left on the coffee table. “I haven’t listened to them in…oh, I suppose it’s been twenty three years.”

Greg blinked, staring across the street through the open curtains of the neighbors, who were slow dancing in the lounge; young, childless couple, moved in last year.  _ Good for them, _ Greg thought, and wondered if this conversation would last long enough for Tina to have gone to bed before he got back inside. 

“I listened to  _ All of This and Nothing _ on a bloody loop for all of ’87,” he said without thinking. 

“I couldn’t bear to,” Mycroft said, and then there was quite a silence while they both contemplated why they would be so baldly honest, referencing a time they very carefully had not discussed in the years since they met again. 

After a while, Greg fished out another cigarette and lit it with a sigh. “You were gorgeous, you know,” he said, and he didn’t feel an iota of guilt for it. “Still are. You just. Keep it locked up, don’t you? Your  _ hair _ .”

Mycroft’s breath tripped. Greg could hear it over the line. But he stayed quiet. 

Greg wished he had the damned wine. He could excuse himself with drunkenness. But he kept talking anyway. “Bet it’s still wavy under what you put in it.”

Mycroft cleared his throat. “It’s  _ receding,”  _ he said.

“Who cares?” Greg scoffed. “Mine was grey before I turned thirty five.”

“Yes, and you look like a fucking film star, still,” Mycroft sighed, startling Greg into a laugh with the rare flash of profanity. 

“Well thanks,” he said. He dragged on the cigarette and stared down at the ember in the dark. “I like when you flirt with me.”

“I don’t—” 

“You do, a bit,” Greg murmured. “You  _ do. _ And I like it.”

“Greg.”

“She’s cheating again,” Greg whispered. “I fucking know it, Mycroft, I  _ know it.” _

Mycroft sighed. “I am sorry.”

“I don’t care anymore. Honestly, I’m so tired of it, but I don’t  _ care. _ Just sometimes I wonder if this is it. Cheating wife, beautiful children, a job that’s going to kill me one day, and… and you, flirting with me every so often, at least until you come to your senses and find someone.”

“What do you—”

“You should be with someone,” Greg said. “I don’t understand why you’re not.”

Mycroft practically  _ stuttered, _ hesitating over his words at first. “I don’t. We don’t. How do you know I’m not?”

“We don’t talk about these things, you’re right,” Greg muttered, and flicked away the cigarette. “You’re alone on Christmas, that’s how I know.”

“He could be traveling, he could be working.”

“Right, if he was like you maybe, sure,” Greg said. “If he existed. Why doesn’t he exist?”

“Reasons,” Mycroft snapped. “Complicated ones that have little to do with you, sorry to bruise your ego by saying so.”

Greg chuckled, not allowing himself to rise to the bait. “I never said it was because of me. What, you think I figure you’ve been pining for me, lo these twenty three  _ long _ years?”

Mycroft didn’t say anything for a while. 

Greg filled the silence with a confession: “When I got back here, I had myself all but married to you in my head, you know? Wasn’t even thought of as possible back then. I had no reason to think we could ever, but… In all the ways that mattered, I thought I’d found… I thought you were it, I really did. Ten fucking days, and I  _ belonged  _ with you.”

“Greg—”

“ _ Don’t. _ I know what that sounds like, and I know what it really was. Guess you’ve read it all over me. Maybe you saw it then, maybe you’ve worked it out now. But at twenty I was unambitious, unrooted, and unwanted. I needed something, and you were it. When you’re young like that you think the stupidest things. But it still hurt, Mycroft, it  _ hurt.” _

“I’m so sorry—” 

“I don’t blame you, you idiot. I just—” Greg sighed. “I know you aren’t the type to believe in fate, but how in the fuck else did I meet your bloody brother? Hm? What’s that about?”

Mycroft was silent. Greg felt shame well up in him like thick, dark oil. 

“I’ll let you get back to your quiet evening,” Greg said. He felt like the world’s biggest prick, sat out on his front stoop saying ridiculous things to a man he had an extended one-off with decades ago, while his children slept inside and his wife did the washing up from Christmas supper. He knew that once they hung up, it would be a while before he could bear to speak to Mycroft again. 

“Greg.”

“Bye, Mycroft.”

Greg punched the button to end the call.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some jumps back and forth in time, here, as with the previous chapter and the first story in the series. Hopefully I have kept that from being too confusing :)  
Thanks to everyone reading along and commenting. Comments and kudos are good for my soul and you're all lovely!

**SUMMER 2008**

“Holy Christ,” Greg gasped, startling so badly upon finding Mycroft Holmes on his doorstep at eight in the morning that he nearly spilled his coffee down his front. “Knock, much?”

“I was working up the nerve,” Mycroft replied dryly. 

Greg raised his eyebrows and shuffled the rest of the way out the door, pulling it shut behind him. “Really?”

Mycroft rocked back a half a step, giving Greg a little room on the stoop to turn and lock up behind himself. “I have a favor to ask,” he said. 

Greg looked back over his shoulder with a smirk. “Since when do you ask me favors? You know I’ll do anything you ask.”

“I…” Mycroft cleared his throat. “I don’t wish to seem as though I feel entitled to your help or your time. I would never ask you to do anything… uncomfortable.”

Greg turned around fully and slipped his keys into his pocket, leaning back against the door to consider Mycroft, and the idling black sedan at the curb. “I know you wouldn’t, so what’s with the drama, then?”

“It’s to do with Sherlock, and Met resources.”

“What else is new?”

Mycroft winced. “Well, in this case I’m requesting that you perform a drugs bust at his flat this afternoon, if you could be so kind.”

Greg tried not to, but he couldn’t help but guffaw at that. “What, you’re serious?”

“Yes,” Mycroft said shortly. “I don’t think he is currently using, but I think he may be in possession of narcotics.”

“Mycroft, if I go in there and find drugs, I’ll have to _ arrest _ him.”

Mycroft waved a hand. “And I can make the charges go away. The drugs will no longer be in his flat, and he can spend an evening contemplating his choices in lock up.”

“Unbelievable,” Greg muttered, but with affection that he couldn’t quite manage to keep out of his voice. “You realize if I have to arrest him, and he winds up in jail for the night, he’s going to drive everyone mad, and _ I’m _going to be the one to take the heat for it.”

Mycroft winced again. “Yes, I realize that.”

Greg bit his lip and watched Mycroft’s profile as the man averted his gaze to the house across the street. Mycroft fiddled with his umbrella and did not otherwise fidget, but his reluctance to make eye contact said plenty. Greg sighed. 

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll discuss it with you. But only because you’re cute when you worry, and—”

Mycroft turned to face him again and raised one eyebrow. _ “Cute?” _

“Sorry,” Greg said, pushing past Mycroft and heading down his steps toward the waiting car, all the better to hide his impending flush. “That was inappropriate.”

Mycroft huffed behind him, and Greg heard the _ click click _ of the umbrella tip on stone as he followed. “Inappropriate, perhaps. Inaccurate, certainly.”

Greg snorted and let himself into the car. Inappropriate, _ definitely _ . Inaccurate? _ No. _

**JANUARY 2010**

**(From: Gregory Lestrade):** Who the hell is this poor sod tagging 

along with Sherlock tonight?

**(To: Gregory Lestrade): **Nice to hear from you, Greg. 

**(From: Gregory Lestrade): **Do NOT try to make me feel awkward. 

Who is he?

**(To: Gregory Lestrade): **You have met Sherlock’s new flatmate, I believe.

I have yet to have the pleasure. 

**(From: Gregory Lestrade): **Don’t kidnap this one, he seems a bit fragile.

**(To: Gregory Lestrade): **Time will tell. Drink?

**(From: Gregory Lestrade):** Do we still do that?

**(To: Gregory Lestrade): **You tell me. Drink?

**(From: Gregory Lestrade): **Not tonight. Maybe soon. 

**(To: Gregory Lestrade): **Until then. 

Mycroft watched Greg from the other side of fluttering yellow crime scene tape, ignoring the retreating figures of Sherlock and the strangely fascinating Doctor Watson, as well as Anthea’s expectant expression as she paused on her way into the car. 

“Sir?”

“In a moment,” Mycroft said, and ducked under the tape. 

He could read lips well, and Greg’s muttered _ Oh for fuck’s sake, _ did not escape his notice, but he ignored whatever Greg said to the man he’d been speaking to in favor of analyzing the rest of him. 

_ Marriage very much on the rocks, Katie had an art project due, Patrick has grown several inches in a matter of months, concerned about expenses, private school?, recently rewrote his will, overworked, weight gain, tired, this case was hard on him, his cholesterol is high again, a fight with his wife, another fight with his wife, slept in the office, angry with Sherlock, glad the case is over, worried that he’s losing his touch, afraid of Mycroft. _

Mycroft drew up short, just as the person with whom Greg had been engaged departed, and found himself unsure of why he’d approached in the first place, with no words prepared to open the conversation. 

“I think I said not tonight,” Greg said, a little sharp. 

“I needed to speak with Sherlock,” Mycroft replied, placid as he could manage. “You have my word that I am not stalking you.”

Greg winced and looked away toward the glowing lights of the building currently swarmed with personnel. “I don’t think you’re stalking me.”

“I simply felt it would be…strange, to see you and not say hello. It’s been months, and I wanted to say…well, hello.”

Greg turned back to Mycroft with wide, disbelieving eyes. “That was practically a stutter out of you.”

“You make me nervous, at times,” Mycroft said plainly. “I don’t know what I should or shouldn’t say to you. I don’t wish to be misread.”

“Misread as what?”

Mycroft felt a hot flush at the back of his neck and leaned on his umbrella, studying his own knuckles where they gripped the handle. “Flirtatious, perhaps?”

“It’s not misreading,” Greg said. “Which is why we can’t have a drink.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

Mycroft felt his own smile for what it was: fake, tight, forced. “There is little that I do not understand.”

“Right, well,” Greg snapped. “Holmeses, am I right? You lot know bloody _ fucking _everything.”

Mycroft faltered, rocking back a bit. “Greg—”

“No, you know what—” Greg bit down on his words, but then seemed to come to the decision that he must let them fly, and continued. “I have held your idiot brother while he vomited through withdrawals. I have seen him almost dead and hooked up to thirty different machines and, and _ tubes _ , pissing in a bag because he couldn’t lay off the smack after you spent Christ knows how much on rehab— _ twice. _ I have dragged his sorry, stinking body home from the gutter, and sat with him to make sure he doesn’t choke on his own tongue.” 

Greg pinched the bridge of his nose, then flung out his hand, waving. “And tonight, that little shit _ stole evidence, _ and solved a case I have been banging my head against the bloody wall over for _ months. _ I’m. So _ sick _ of him, and to be honest Mycroft, a bit sick of you because you _ expect _ it, don’t you? That I’ll let him do whatever he wants, traipsing over my crime scenes with random traumatized civilians tagging along, abusing my team in the process, and as a bonus, making me look like a blithering idiot. That I’ll watch him for you when you can’t be fucked, or you’re in Rio or wherever the hell it is you go. And that I’ll— That I’ll _ feel _ for you. That I’ll let you _ tease _ me about it. God. _ God. _ Please, I need to go deal with my team and get this scene wrapped up so I can go the fuck home, okay? Is that alright, Mycroft? Can I do my job?”

Mycroft swallowed down the retort he sorely wanted to make, informing Greg that not a _ word _ of that had been even remotely logical; that Mycroft never asked Greg to care about Sherlock. That Mycroft didn’t force him to do any of the things he had done, just as he hadn’t forced Greg to _ feel _ anything. Mycroft swallowed the nasty words he wanted to say on the state of Greg’s marriage. The stinging retort about how Mycroft’s brother had made his job easier for years. He didn’t mean any of it. He knew it was all fiction he told himself. Mycroft _ did _ask Greg, both directly and indirectly, over and over, to take care of Sherlock and he had never asked Greg to stop. Mycroft didn’t want to hurt Greg by deducing his marital problems. He didn’t want to insult him by implying that he wasn’t an excellent detective. 

So he nodded, feeling numb and tired. “Yes,” he said. “Of course you can.” 

“_ Thanks,” _ Greg snapped. “See you when I see you.”

Greg turned away from him and Mycroft drew in a silent breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, too softly, he thought, for Greg to hear, and turned to go. 

“_ Fuck,” _he heard from behind him, and then Greg tugged on his arm to stop him from leaving. 

Mycroft turned stiffly. “Don’t.”

“No, I have to,” Greg insisted, and while he still sounded highly irritated and tired, he didn’t seem to be angry at Mycroft, specifically, any longer. “_ I’m _ sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“Was it?” Mycroft shook his head. “Perhaps I needed to hear it.”

“Suppose I needed to say it, but I could have been kinder about it.” Greg let go of Mycroft’s arm and cleared his throat before crossing his arms awkwardly over his chest, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I’ve been frustrated. About a lot of things. Most of them aren’t your fault.”

“I…Alright.”

Greg sighed. “I think we need to take a break from each other. I need to sort myself out. I need to figure out what I’m doing in my marriage. I can’t do it if I’m…talking to you. Relying on you for everything I’m not getting elsewhere. It’s not fair to you, and it makes me feel awful, like I’m being unfaithful, and then I get angry because _ she _ has been so why can’t I just. Have something. But I don’t _ have _you. So. Right.”

Mycroft took another deep breath and said, “I do understand.”

“You do?”

He did. Mycroft had known all of this already for years, now, really. He had selfishly ignored all of the ways their friendship had changed, the way their interactions had begun to skirt the very edges of appropriateness, and the effect that might have on Greg, on _ himself, _ because it felt good. Like sneaking extra dessert. Or, if Mycroft was honest with himself, _ allowing _ himself single bites of dessert, once every month or so. 

It was pathetic. _ Mycroft _ was pathetic.

“Yes,” Mycroft said, pushing his thoughts aside. “I do. I hope… I hope things improve. I… wish for you to be happy.”

Greg winced and looked away. “I know. Thank you,” he said. “I really need to go and wrap up this scene, okay?”

“Of course,” Mycroft murmured. “Until next time.”

“Yeah,” Greg said, almost too soft for Mycroft to hear as he turned and walked away. “Next time.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting the next chapter right now, because I feel terrible leaving you all on a down note twice in a row!


	3. Chapter 3

**APRIL 2010**

Greg wouldn’t say so to Mycroft, but he didn’t like the Diogenes Club. He particularly didn’t like it when Mycroft  _ summoned _ him there, so today was less irritating, since Greg had chosen to invite himself. Then again, the week before, Mycroft had  _ tried _ summoning Greg there, and Greg had, he felt, delivered a fairly scorching flaying-by-text-message in response to that. Mycroft had been radio silent with him ever since— even while Sherlock ran around London like a madman after a psychotic bomber. 

So, on the second day of  April , the day after Greg had heard absolutely nothing from Sherlock or John until late at night, and even then only a terse “Everything fine. Danger passed,” from John via text, he decided it was time to grit his teeth and tolerate the oppressive silence and needling, opulent stodginess of Mycroft’s club in order to say his piece. 

In short, Greg had  _ had it _ with Holmeses in recent days. On this day, he would demand answers. He kept obediently silent all the way through the club, no under-his-breath singing or idle clicking of his tongue, no grinning good-naturedly at the attendants. He wasn’t feeling particularly cutesy about all of this, and he wanted to save up his righteous anger, so as not to be waylaid by Mycroft’s inevitably flawless tie knot and cufflinks. 

He was shown to Mycroft’s office door by the usual lackey, though Greg actually couldn’t be one hundred percent sure this bloke was the same as the last time or the time before—they all looked the same to him in their crisply creased trousers and tails.  _ Tails and bowties _ for Christ’s sake. 

Mycroft’s door opened with a whisper and shut silently behind Greg before Greg’s eyes could manage to adjust to the dim lighting. Mycroft sat at his desk. No flawless tie knot. No  _ tie,  _ full stop. No cufflinks, either, his sleeves rolled to the elbow. He was a rumpled mess, at least by Mycroftian standards. Greg swallowed. This was worse than perfection could possibly have been for Greg’s resolve to stay furious. 

“What the fuck?” Greg demanded, but softly, softer than he’d imagined on his brisk walk here from the tube. 

“Hello Greg,” Mycroft sighed. “Feel free to have a seat.”

“Yeah,” Greg murmured, making his way into the room and the deep leather visitor’s chair. Mycroft usually kept this place fairly warmly lit. Today, his desk was covered in papers and files and an ignored teacup and plate of sandwiches, with only the desk lamp to light it all up. In the middle of the day, this office felt like the wee hours of the morning. Greg sat. 

Mycroft stayed where he was, in his chair with his elbows propped on the desk in front of him, fingers steepled under his chin. He looked exhausted. 

“Were you involved in this mad shite Sherlock’s gotten into?” Greg asked, figuring he may as well get it out of the way. 

“Peripherally,” Mycroft sighed. “But not…exactly.”

“Why did you try to get me here last week to do your bidding with him, then?”

“I apologized for that.”

Greg rolled his eyes. “I realize that, and I’m not going to shout at you over it now. I was going to, but you look like hell. So. Is that why?”

“In a sense,” Mycroft sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I had hoped you could help me convince him to divert his attention to another—”

“Do you realize that this Moriarty person was strapping innocent people with bombs? Do you realize a woman died and took half a block of flats with her?  _ Divert his attention—” _

“You must know that I know these things—”

“Yeah I bloody well do, which is why I don’t understand why you didn’t  _ do anything _ about it!” Greg was shouting, and he couldn’t seem to pull himself back. “This was a fucking  _ nightmare, _ Mycroft! A  _ nightmare. _ There was a  _ child.”  _

Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose.  _ “Yes,  _ I am aware. I did what I could.”

“What you c- What you  _ could? _ ” 

Mycroft dropped his hand and glared across the desk. Greg very carefully did not rear back. Mycroft had never looked at  _ him _ like that before. 

“ _ Yes,” _ Mycroft hissed. “I did what I could. I can’t say any more than that.” 

“Mycroft,” Greg sighed, swallowing against the words that wanted to pour from his mouth and demand answers. “This has been…terrifying. Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take me to untangle all of this? I barely know where to begin.”

“You won’t need to,” Mycroft replied evenly. “As we speak, a team of agents will be arriving at New Scotland Yard with authorization to seize all case files related to Moriarty.”

For the first time since they met, for the first time in nearly twenty-five years, Greg dearly wanted to punch Mycroft Holmes in the nose.  _ “What?” _

“The man is a terrorist,” Mycroft said. “This is no longer a case for the Met. You must realize that.”

“So you text after months of silence, wanting me to heel like your dog so you can ask me to  _ divert _ your reckless, idiot,  _ show off  _ brother, but you couldn’t have given me a heads up about that?” 

Mycroft looked away. “You know I couldn’t. And I did not want you to heel like  _ my dog _ . I was...desperate for help. I’ve been trying not to bother you since you requested that I do so.” 

Greg swallowed. “I’m—” he stood. “I need to go.” 

“Wait,” Mycroft said, standing from his desk chair and leaning forward, palms on the desk. “Please. Wait.”

Greg clenched his fists and took a breath. “Waiting.”

“I’m sorry,” Mycroft said. “For  _ summoning  _ you. It was wrong of me to try to use you that way, especially when you were in the midst of the situation with Sherlock. I…I can’t say I wasn’t attempting to use you. I was. But...I did so because I trust you, and it has become something of an impulse, to call you when I need help with Sherlock.”

Greg sagged. He knew all of this. “I know.”

“I’m sorry, too, that I can’t tell you all of the things I wish I could,” Mycroft said, and his voice was heavy with sincerity. “Truly, Greg. I wish…I wish a great many things.”

Greg’s lungs shuddered in his chest.  _ Christ, _ he thought,  _ you and I both. _

“Thank you,” Greg said after a moment during which he was sure he was going to reach out and touch Mycroft, try to be comforting, or…just. Touch him a bit. “I appreciate that. I do need to go. I’m still annoyed as fuck at you, and I need to take a walk.” 

“Right,” Mycroft murmured. “Yes.” 

Greg sighed and gave in, stepping forward and touching Mycroft’s arm, just below his rolled cuff. He knew it was an awkward as hell thing to do, but he did it, placing his palm on the skin there and just holding for a moment, before drawing away again. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said softly. “I’m just shattered from all of this.” 

“Understandable,” Mycroft said quietly. He had not so much as twitched a muscle since Greg moved to touch him, and his eyes remained cast down at the top of his desk. “As am I, frankly. Since I can’t tell you anything, you might wish to ask John Watson for an account of last night’s events. Things are… I’m afraid things are about to get much, much worse before they get any better. I’m sorry.”

Greg felt an unwilling smile quirk his own lips. “Not your fault there are nutters trying to kill us all, is it? I’ll see you later, Mycroft.”

Mycroft nodded, and didn’t ask Greg to wait again, and so Greg left the office and moved on autopilot out of the hush of the Diogenes. He stopped on the sidewalk outside, the sudden clamor of London almost overwhelming for a moment before Greg could get his brain back online to make a decision about where he should go next. He thought of going straight to Baker Street. He thought of going back to his office. He thought of his kids, both at home from school by now. 

_ Sod Sherlock, and double sod work,  _ Greg thought.  _ And sod the tube.  _ He hailed a cab, and went home to hold his kids. 

  
  


**SPRING 2007**

It was a quiet year. Sherlock had hared off to Florida for reasons he thought Mycroft did not know about, their parents were happily ensconced at home pursuing some charitable work during a down period before their next trip to parts unknown, and Mycroft had not heard so much as a peep out of Sherrinford since a minor incident at the end of the previous year. 

He found himself free on a Saturday afternoon for the first time in months, and with a text message from Greg Lestrade. 

**(From Gregory Lestrade): ** Charys says I can ask you to lunch today. 

**(To Gregory Lestrade): ** Does she? Well, I suppose I accept. 

Did you have something in mind?

**(From Gregory Lestrade): ** Dropping Kate off at a birthday party 

near that place you like with the pastries? 

**(To Gregory Lestrade): ** You know I’m avoiding sugar. 

**(From Gregory Lestrade): ** And butter! So? 

Mycroft laughed to himself and twirled his umbrella between his fingers. 

**(To: Gregory Lestrade): ** I will meet you there. One?

**(From: Gregory Lestrade): ** Perfect. 

***

“I’m not eating that,” Mycroft stated blandly, arms crossed. 

“The hell you’re not,” Greg scoffed, nudging the pain au chocolat closer. “Come on. You want to.”

“I  _ don’t, _ ” Mycroft insisted. “Really.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Greg wheedled, leaning back in his chair and grinning across at Mycroft, one eyebrow cocked. “Sherlock’s not here to rag on you for it if you  _ do  _ gain what, three ounces? Which, by the way, you  _ won’t.  _ Even if you do, it’ll be worth it. It’s  _ chocolate, _ Mycroft. You  _ love  _ chocolate.”

Mycroft shook his head, keeping his face placid and cool. “Wrong.”

“I’m right,” Greg said, sly. “Go on, take a bite.”

_ “You _ take a bite,” Mycroft retorted, startling Greg into a laugh. “You eat it, and I’ll take the very last bite.”

“Deal,” Greg chuckled, and picked up the pastry. “So you’re just gonna watch me eat it?”

Mycroft drew in a breath and held it for a moment as he sternly told himself not to blush. “Yes, that is what I’m going to do.”

Mycroft half expected Greg to sober, to smile a bit less freely and draw back on whatever it was they were doing. He didn’t. He took a slow, exaggerated bite of the pain au chocolate and sighed with pleasure. Mycroft  _ very sternly _ told himself not to blush. Or twitch. Or lean across the table and lick an errant flake of pastry from the corner of Greg’s mouth. 

“This,” Greg said once he’d swallowed. “Is unreal. So good. You’re going to love that  _ one single  _ bite. Trust me.”

“Less talking,” Mycroft teased. “More eating. I’m living vicariously.”

Greg leaned forward and said, “Oh, that’s what you’re doing?”

Mycroft kept his gaze steady and his face still, and nodded. Greg quirked a shrug and that boyish grin again, and took a bite. 

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**DECEMBER 2010**

**(To Gregory Lestrade): **No, I won’t be in attendance at the 

Baker Street “drinks do.” Enjoy yourself. 

**(From Gregory Lestrade): **Well why not? I’ll be there, 

it’ll be fun!

**(To Gregory Lestrade): **I have nothing to say to that. 

Enjoy yourself. 

**(From Gregory Lestrade):**Your brother needs a smack 

in the head. The two of you should be nicer to each other. 

**(To Gregory Lestrade): **My brother is my brother. 

Therefore, that is impossible. 

**(From Gregory Lestrade): **Right, you’re totally blameless. 

**(To Gregory Lestrade): **If you only knew. I know I am 

not blameless, but I do try. 

**(From Gregory Lestrade): **I know that. Sorry. G2g, work, but 

Merry Christmas, alright? Call me some time. 

*******

**(To Mycroft Holmes): **Your bloody brother. 

**(From Mycroft Holmes):** What has he done now?

**(From Mycroft Holmes):** Did something happen?

**(From Mycroft Holmes):** I am currently with him. 

I can’t provide details, but it is almost certainly a 

danger night. John is going to keep watch. I’m afraid 

things could get unpleasant, however. 

**(From Mycroft Holmes): **My previous text was 

not meant to imply that I expect you to take action. 

Apologies. Are you alright?

**(To Mycroft Holmes): **I can’t talk now. Tell Sherlock to call if he needs me, but

I don’t know if I can be of any help for a few days. 

Greg sat on his front stoop on Boxing Day morning, and watched his wife load the car with bags. He positively itched for a cigarette. 

“Well,” said Katie, coming to sit beside him. “This is a real cock up.”

“_Language,” _ Greg hissed, though he agreed with her. 

“Dad,” Katie sighed, sounding more tired than any fourteen year old should. “What did Mum _ do?” _

“Oh, Kate, it’s…not something I can talk to you about.”

“I tell you _ everything.” _

Greg swallowed against the lump in his throat, which had formed so quickly and with such strength that the pain of not allowing himself to cry felt like it might literally choke him. “I know, pet,” he managed to rasp out. “I wish I could, but it’s…complicated. I love you so much, and Patrick. I love you both so much.”

“Are you going to get a divorce this time?”

Greg turned to look at Katie, her blonde hair streaked in blue that was sure to give his mother-in-law a fit, a little purple eyeliner smudged under her eyes. Tina had shouted at her to _ take it off for the love of Christ, Katie _ not two hours earlier. She didn’t look overly concerned, which didn’t surprise Greg in the least. He knew Katie had heard him and Tina fighting more than once, and more often recently, try as they both had to keep it quiet. It had been Tina’s idea to tell the kids Greg had been called to work and wouldn’t be going to Dorset with them. Patrick, only five and easily lied to, had accepted this with a shrug. Katie had said nothing until now. She looked back at Greg with her mother’s face, but more serious, calmer; she had inherited his easy manner, proving the concept of nurture over nature. 

“I think you should get a divorce,” Katie said finally, when Greg hadn’t been able to bring himself to answer her. “Mum’s not. She’s. Dad—”

“Stop, darling,” Greg scraped out, shaking his head and pulling Katie close. “Alright? Don’t worry about it.”

“I worry about you,” she said, muffled into his shoulder. 

“Not your job,” he murmured gruffly. “Have fun at Uncle Ken’s, alright?”

“Will you ring me tonight?”

“‘Course,” Greg said, forcing a little false cheer into his voice. “Right after _ Die Hard_.”

Katie groaned. “I hate Boxing Day at Uncle Ken’s. And now I’ll miss _ Die Hard _. Rhiannon isn’t going to let me watch it, she always wants to watch stupid things.”

“We’ll watch it together when you get back then,” Greg told her, kissing her forehead before standing up and pulling her with them. “Go get your brother and help him into the car, would you?”

“Okay,” Katie groaned. “Fine. But I’m upset. To make it up to me, you should let me meet Sherlock Holmes.”

Greg laughed. “Not a chance.”

“He’s _ cool, _ dad.”

“Your mum would kill me.”

Katie rolled her eyes, then visibly bit down on whatever she was going to say to that, then nodded and hugged him one last time before hurrying into the house after Patrick. 

Greg watched her go and breathed in deeply through his nose, telling himself to get himself together before he turned around to face Tina. 

*******

**(To Gregory Lestrade): **Are you free for a phone call?

Mycroft was surprised and immediately concerned when his phone began to ring moments after he pressed send on the text.

“Hello?”

“Mycroft,” Greg sighed. “Is everything alright?”

“It’s fine, I simply wished to wish you a Merry Christmas and make sure Sherlock hadn’t done anything unforgivable to you last night.” 

There was a long pause. “Sherlock,” Greg gritted. “Sherlock made a deduction too many, let’s just go with that.”

Mycroft leant back in his chair, fingers tapping against his chin. He’d have liked to say something supportive; he knew what Sherlock must have said. Not _ exactly _ what he must have said, but that it was about Tina Lestrade was a given, even without that tone in Greg’s voice. 

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Mycroft asked at last, tentative. For a few months, he and Greg had been making inroads to some semblance of a return to the friendship they had built over the last several years, but generally more personal topics, while not off limits, had been carefully skirted.

Greg sighed again. “Well, I’m not in Dorset.” 

Mycroft winced. “I am sorry.” 

“It’s done this time,” Greg said.

Mycroft believed him. He’d heard Greg say it a time or two in the past, but this time he could read the truth in Greg’s voice. 

“What happened to Sherlock last night?” Greg asked after a beat of silence. “He called you, then tore out of Baker Street, Molly Hooper behind him. Which reminds me, how the bloody fuck does Sherlock keep her around? He’s horrid to her.”

“How does he keep any of you around?” Mycroft mused. 

“You know why, in my case,” Greg muttered. 

Mycroft blinked. “I really don’t. Anyone else would have left him to overdose in the gutter. Or arrested him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Greg scoffed. “I never could have done that. He’s…_ Sherlock. _I hate him, and I…I’m grateful for him. Some part of me believes in him. Then he had to go and be your brother, so. I’m stuck with him, aren’t I?”

Mycroft smiled. “That’s kind.”

“_He _ isn’t.” Greg cleared his throat. “Tina’s been fucking the P.E. teacher again, he said. In a room full of people.”

“_Sherlock,” _ Mycroft said through his teeth. “I’m sorry, I never could force manners into his thick skull. I’m so sorry.”

“Please, don’t, let’s change the subject. Back to my question,” Greg said. “What happened last night?”

Mycroft blew air out hard through his nose and crossed his arms. “Nothing I can give many details about. Someone Sherlock knew was murdered.”

“_What?” _

“No one you’ve met.”

“I thought I’d met all of Sherlock’s friends.”

Mycroft huffed. “I didn’t say she was a friend, I said he _ knew _ her.”

Greg was quiet for a long moment. “I would’ve bet good money Sherlock was _ gay.” _

“Sherlock is a category unto himself,” Mycroft replied. “I’m not sure he’s ever been romantically involved with anyone. If he ever could be, I’m not sure gender would matter much to him. This person, the murdered woman, I think she interested him as much as anyone could hope to, and I think he is…yes, I would say he is hurt by her loss.”

“Let me guess,” Greg said. “He would never say as much.”

“Well, of course not,” Mycroft said. “Anyway, none of this is very Christmas-y talk.”

“You don’t even like Christmas,” Greg laughed. “And mine has turned out to be a bit of a wash this year.”

“Again, I’m so sorry,” Mycroft said. “What will you do?”

“Work,” Greg said, flat. “That’s all there is, right?”

Mycroft bit his tongue on an invitation. If he invited a distraught Greg to spend Christmas evening with him right now, nothing good could come of it. Instead, he glanced around his own office and sighed. “Considering I will likely be in my own office for the foreseeable future? You are probably right.”

Greg hummed over the line, and a silence followed. Mycroft sifted through folders on his desk and let it hang there, listening to the sound of Greg lighting a cigarette. 

“I thought you quit,” he murmured, locating the file he needed. 

“So did I,” Greg drawled. “You?”

“Split one with Sherlock last night,” Mycroft admitted, smiling faintly at the scrape of Greg’s chuckle. “Are you in the office now?”

“Loitering in the parking structure. How’s work?”

“Stressful.” Mycroft ran a finger down a line of seat numbers. 

“World about to end or anything?”

“Daily,” Mycroft replied, truly smiling now. “You would know.”

“Just little individual worlds,” Greg sighed. “Nothing so grand as your…whatever. I should go. Thanks for the chat.”

“Any time,” Mycroft said, meaning it. “Merry Christmas.”

“You, too.”

Greg rung off and Mycroft set his phone aside. He was due to call his mother soon, and his eyes were going crossed from staring at these files for hours on end. He sighed and reached for his desk phone. He would send Anthea home, at least.

“I’m quite content, sir,” she said before he could speak a word over the line. “No plans tonight, other than being in the office until the last moment you yourself are here.”

“I’m fine on my own.”

“Hm, well.” Mycroft could _ hear _ Anthea rolling her eyes. “I disagree. Did you have a nice chat with DI Lestrade?”

“I will fire you and ask Charys back,” Mycroft threatened. 

“She’s over you, sir,” Anthea said flatly. “Moved on to an even more repressed chap in the Swedish ministry of transportation. Says he lets her color code his rolodex but is positively technophobic. She’s mad for him.”

Mycroft snorted. “Lies.” He and Anthea both knew that Charys had left to start a family in Chicago with Mycroft’s former mentee in the SAS, Richard. They had a son, Lionel. Mycroft had in fact sent the child a Christmas gift both this and the previous year. “She’s KGB now, you can’t fool me.”

“I heard she had gone to be a PA for an alcoholic Hollywood director,” Anthea shot back. 

“Fun as this is,” Mycroft drawled, “it’s going to be time soon for the Annual Christmas Call.”

“Scotch after?” Anthea proposed. 

“Please.”

“Tell your mum hi from me, and thank her for the lovely scarf.”

“Cease your unauthorized contact with my mother, or I really _ will _fire you and promote Beth from accounts to your position.” 

Anthea laughed at him then, and Mycroft adored her, he really did. She said, “I could stop speaking to your mother, sir, but Mister Holmes the elder is non-negotiable. I just love him too much.”

Mycroft chuckled and hung up on her. He locked the Bond Air file away and allowed himself to relax back in his chair, feeling tired and annoyed, still, but also...strangely at peace. A few minutes later his office door opened to admit Anthea with a bottle of scotch and two tumblers. 

“Let’s start a little early,” she said, quiet and conspiratorial. 

Mycroft nodded and leaned forward to accept a pre-phone-with-Mummy finger of liquid perseverance, and clinked glasses with her. 

“Merry Christmas, sir,” Anthea said. “I hope Santa brought you everything you wanted.”

“To you as well,” Mycroft said, and thought about wanting, and Greg Lestrade, and sipped his scotch. 

**APRIL 2006**

Around Easter four years earlier, Greg had called Mycroft from A&E to tell him Sherlock had been taken there by ambulance from a crime scene.

“It’s not drugs,” Greg said as soon as he finished explaining the basics, clutching his phone tight to his ear. “He’s clean. They think his appendix burst.”

“My god,” Mycroft grit out. “I just landed in bloody…not in England.”

“Shit.”

“Precisely.” 

Greg listened as Mycroft covered his phone speaker and spoke in urgent tones. Greg himself was pacing outside A&E, cigarette in hand. His call-waiting toned in his ear, and he declined the call without looking. It would be his sergeant, and he would need to call him back as soon as he finished the call with Mycroft, but Greg would put him off for now. 

“I don’t know when I can make it back,” Mycroft said after another moment. “Our parents are in Costa Rica. Can you—”

“I have to deal with this crime scene, but my sergeant is handling it for now.” Greg glanced at his watch. “I can stay long enough to find out how surgery’s gone, and then I’ll need to run back out to wrap things up. I’ll come back to see him in recovery. I think the timing will work out. Katie had this, the appendectomy, two years back. He’s going to be alright, Mycroft, alright?”

Mycroft only made a noncommittal noise and then fell quiet, that huge brain of his surely sifting through eventualities and possibilities, trying to recall anything he’d ever read about burst appendices. 

“Mycroft, love, I’ve _ got _ him, alright?” Greg winced at his own slip, letting an endearment into the sentence like that. It was something he’d been struggling with, and successfully avoiding, for nearly a year now. 

Mycroft made another sound, almost _ wounded. _“I know you do,” he said tightly. “Thank you, Greg.”

“Hey, it’s not ideal but I’ll manage this, right? Get home when you can. What sort of time difference am I working with here?”

“It’s late at night where I am,” Mycroft murmured. “It’s still _ yesterday _ here.”

Greg squinted up into the cloudy morning sky above him and sighed. “Christ. Alright. Alright, it’s okay. You get to a hotel and sleep, yeah? I’ll text Charys if she needs to wake you.”

“I won’t sleep.”

_ “Sleep,” _ Greg commanded gently. “For me.”

There was yet another long silence and Mycroft cleared his throat. “Perhaps.”

“I’m off to check on things. Need to call my sergeant.” Greg tossed away his cigarette butt. “Sleep, you stupid man.”

“I’m very intelligent, actually,” Mycroft replied dryly, but the relief in his voice was nearly palpable across the ocean and the dateline. 

“Are you?” Greg turned to the doors back into A&E, picturing Mycroft in some airport somewhere, in his coat and leather gloves, turning to leave the terminal or even better, deplaning right onto the tarmac in the dark, lights and wind and drama. “Hadn’t realized.”

  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL! I super smoothly accidentally added this final chapter to the FIRST FIC today- hopefully no one actually read it there, because that would make no sense! Pretty sure it was only there for a few minutes *facepalm* 
> 
> Have pity on a flustered author, friends, and enjoy this chapter here, where it belongs.

**AUGUST 1986 **

“I don’t want to go back,” Greg said abruptly over dinner the night before he was scheduled to leave Paris for London. He set down his knife and fork with a clatter as he said it, his hands gripping the edge of Mycroft’s tiny two-person dining table. 

Mycroft looked up from a listless contemplation of his own plate of take away and sighed. “I don’t want you to go back,” he said. “But you won’t let me pay to change your ticket, and you say you don’t know if your friend will have the space for you in a month, so.” Mycroft flicked one hand in a gesture that conveyed that he was still at a loss, after days of trying to think of ways to keep Greg in Paris with him. 

“Well, I have to go back,” Greg replied, a bit sharp. “I  _ have _ to, but I don’t want to. Is what I meant.”

“I know,” Mycroft murmured. He set aside his own cutlery and sighed. “I do know what you meant. I shouldn’t have even offered to change your ticket. You have a life to get on with.”

Greg finally released the table’s edge and clasped his hands together in front of him, elbows on the table and forehead rested against his clenched fingers. “Don’t say that like you don’t,” he muttered. “I’ve been keeping you from work. Distracting you.”

“And thank god for that,” Mycroft said firmly, kicking at Greg’s ankle under the table. “I’ve loved it. Look at me.” Greg did, letting his forearms fall to the table. “I’ve  _ loved _ having you here. I can’t wait to see you when we’re both home.”

“Shit,” Greg bit out, looking away and blinking rapidly. “Don’t be so sweet, or I’ll embarrass myself.”

Mycroft’s heart stuttered in his chest. “I’m not being sweet. I’m being honest. And…you might not like me as much, when we’re back in London.”

“Shut up,” Greg laughed, turning to face him again. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, I’m even more boring in London that I am in Paris,” Mycroft drawled, even as his palms began to sweat. Could he tell Greg the truth? Or at least some of it? That his job was going to be intense and probably dangerous, and that his family was a ruin, that Mycroft was often called upon to clean up whatever mess one of his siblings had caused, or to assist his mysterious Uncle, to whom he wasn’t quite sure he was actually related, with matters of espionage (among other things)? 

“You are the least boring person I have ever met,” Greg said definitively as he leaned across the small table and kissed Mycroft on the tip of his nose. “When you get back to London, I’ll take you to my favorite places, and you can take me to yours.” 

“Deal,” Mycroft murmured, then accepted a kiss on the mouth. “Eat your food so I can take you to bed.”

Greg grinned and made a show of taking a huge bite of noodles. 

  
  


**NEW YEARS EVE 2010**

**To Mycroft Holmes: ** Your brother has thrown an American out a 

window roughly seven times tonight. I’m handling this shite, and 

then I need to speak with you. 

**From Mycroft Holmes: ** Perhaps you could elaborate on what 

Sherlock has done now. I’ll be at the club until ten. 

**To Mycroft Holmes: ** Don’t worry about Sherlock. 

Not at the club. Where will you be after?

**From Mycroft Holmes: ** My flat. It will be late, however.

**To Mycroft Holmes: ** Perfect, text me the address. 

  
  
  


**AUGUST 1986**

_ I love you,  _ Mycroft thought, using all of his limbs to pull Greg’s body closer. 

_ Fuck me,  _ he nearly said when Greg slipped a slick finger back behind Mycroft’s balls.  _ I love you, get inside me. Don’t leave.  _

Greg kissed him slow and deep and unrelenting, like he was trying to melt the two of them together, heat and closeness that could have been suffocating but was, instead, perfectly overwhelming. Mycroft loved the way Greg kissed. He loved the sweet, hesitant way he touched Mycroft everywhere else in that moment, the fingers of one hand gentle on Mycroft’s jaw while his other hand teased at Mycroft’s hole, feather-light. Mycroft clung to him, and Greg poured himself into Mycroft’s mouth, and still he was gentle, careful. 

“More,” Mycroft gasped the next time they parted for air. “Please.”

Greg clucked his tongue and held Mycroft’s jaw a little more firmly, pressed his fingertip insistently against the ring of muscle, and grinned. “Nice job asking.”

“Tease,” Mycroft accused. 

“Never,” Greg promised, then slipped his finger inside and directed Mycroft’s mouth into another searing kiss. 

  
  
  


**NEW YEARS EVE 2010**

Greg had never actually been to Mycroft’s flat before. He knew good and well that it wasn’t the only residence Mycroft made use of, but he hadn’t been to any of those, either. He had gathered over the years that the rare hours Mycroft spent “at home” were spent at the flat, though. 

When he arrived at Mycroft’s address, Greg felt strangely calm, considering what he was about to do. He had spent the week between Christmas and New Year detonating a bomb, or perhaps simply sifting through the shrapnel of the bomb Tina had placed between them years ago, searching for something resembling a life. 

As of New Years Eve, Greg knew the following things: his wife had been cheating on him on a near-constant basis for the last six years; he had more or less known it and, out of fear or obligation or complacency, had let it go until he simply couldn’t any longer; he would most likely be kipping on Sally Donovan’s pull-out sofa until January 10, which was his move-in date on an utterly depressing bedsit to tide him over til he got his finances straight; his soon-to-be-ex wife felt that upon his exit from the family home, it would be appropriate to tell his daughter, who for fourteen years had called him Dad, that in fact her biological father was a deceased smack head who had never met her; his five year old son may or may not actually be his biological child; and he was bloody sick and tired of being sick and tired of all of it. 

Seven days post-P.E. Teacher, Greg didn’t know much, really, about his life as he’d lived it for the past decade and a half, but he knew one truth that had endured, somehow, for much, much longer than that. 

Greg was on a mission to tell that truth. 

Greg was headed toward that mission’s target. 

He would say his piece and then…

Then, another bomb would go off. 

**AUGUST 1986**

Mycroft came with Greg’s fingers buried deep inside him and Greg’s open, gasping mouth over his own, drinking down Mycroft’s cries before sliding away, over his jawline and up his cheek to the salty line of a tear, his tongue licking it away as Mycroft caught his breath. 

“I didn’t know—” Mycroft groaned again as Greg pulled his fingers away. “I wish…I wish I had known. We could have done that every day.”

“Next time,” Greg chuckled against Mycroft’s temple. 

“Promise?” Mycroft demanded, bullying his way into another kiss with just the insistent movement of his head, feeling too heavy to move for the moment as the last aftershocks of orgasm worked through him. 

“Yes,” Greg said softly, sweetly, and they kissed a dozen times, a hundred times more, before Mycroft regained the coordination needed to roll them over and move down Greg’s body. 

**NEW YEARS EVE 2010 **

Mycroft met Greg at the door, looking no different in the foyer of this shockingly un-posh apartment than he ever had in his office at the Department of Transport, or the Diogenes Club, in the backs of armored black sedans, or on chilly London streets. He was, of course, without his umbrella, which Greg spotted resting in a stand by the door, which he closed behind himself and leaned against, taking in Mycroft’s suit and tie, his tired face, the confusion in his eyes. 

“Take me somewhere…comfortable,” Greg said after a handful of awkward moments. “Do you have a lounge? Or just a formal parlor you never use? A kitchen table?”

Mycroft twitched a wan smile. “I have a poor excuse for a lounge, and neither of those other things in this flat. Through here—” 

Greg followed the gesture of Mycroft’s swept-out arm into a downright nondescript lounge with a cold fireplace and street-facing windows covered by blackout curtains. There was nothing personal whatsoever about this room; it had nothing in it that indicated a man who spent much of his time in a gentleman’s club that was a holdover from Victoria’s reign, or who occupied a mysterious and undoubtedly high-paying position in the British government, or even one who had a younger brother who at this moment was ensconced in a cluttered, slightly squidgy flat from which a shady CIA agent had been expelled by force no less than half a dozen times that very night. It was less personal than a dentist’s waiting room. Greg watched Mycroft sit on the boring, grey sofa. Mycroft waved a hand to indicate that Greg should join him, or take the equally boring beige chair situated to the left. Greg shook his head and remained standing. He thought to shrug out of his coat, which he discarded on the terrible chair. 

“Right,” Greg said, pushing up his sleeves, already rolled from earlier, filling out Sherlock-induced paperwork at his desk before he came here. “Right. I have something to say.”

Mycroft nodded slowly, his eyes guarded. “I…had gathered as much, yes.” 

“Right,” said Greg, again. “Here’s the thing—”

  
  
  


**AUGUST 1986**

Mycroft wanted desperately to know what Greg would taste like without the latex there between them. As he filled his mouth with Greg’s cock, his hands with Greg’s thighs, he was already planning ahead for just a matter of weeks from that moment, when they could, he figured, get matching new test results and then…and then. 

Greg’s hands tangled in Mycroft’s hair, and he rambled nonsense amid the praise tripping from his lips so easily, so sincerely, that Mycroft had, in the last day or so, begun to think he really  _ meant _ it. 

_ God, I love this, _ Mycroft thought, smoothly bypassing his own gag reflex, easy to do now.  _ I love you, I love you, I love you. _

“Yes,” Greg gasped above him. “Please, Mycroft, please.”

Mycroft swallowed around the mouthful, let his throat contract around the sensitive head of Greg’s cock, and moaned incoherently while he pretended that Greg could read his thoughts. 

**NEW YEARS EVE 2010 **

“I love you,” Greg said plainly. “You must know that. Do you?”

Mycroft, for the first time since they met, looked completely blindsided. 

Greg deflated a bit. “Really? You don’t? You don’t  _ know  _ that already? You, who knows everything?”

“What—”

“No, shut up,” Greg snapped, without heat. He waved a hand and Mycroft, obligingly, clicked his mouth closed. “Fine, you didn’t know. But I do. Have. Loved you. I  _ love _ you.”

Mycroft simply stared at Greg, eyes wide, brows raised. 

Greg shrugged helplessly. “I knew I shouldn’t, you know, when we started…whatever.  _ Meeting. _ But I couldn’t help it, and I figured I’d never do anything about it, and I loved Tina, so. Fine. I figured it was fine.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, the other on one hip while he considered his next words. “Thing is, my wife doesn’t love me, and I’m… I haven’t felt that way about her for a while, either. I was trying. I  _ tried _ . It didn’t work. And that’s fine, too.” Greg placed both hands on his hips then and rocked back on his heels, talking it through almost like a case. “So right, maybe I’m a little bit of a bastard, hanging around with a bloke I knew I was in love with, but, well. I could’ve been worse. I could’ve… Well, actually, no.”

Mycroft crossed his arms over his chest and huffed as Greg slashed a hand through the air, angrily, out of frustration at how difficult he was finding all of this to articulate. But Mycroft said nothing to interrupt the flow of his monologue. 

“I couldn’t have done anything with you, before. Because I wouldn’t do that to you.” Greg snorted a laugh. “Ironic, that. I never thought, you know, like that time after the pub when I almost— I never thought oh, I can’t believe I almost did that to  _ Tina. _ I thought,  _ Mycroft _ , he’s more than that. Because you were. You are. Because I love you so much it’s disgusting. I loved you when you were twenty, and I loved you when you were forty, and I love you now. So I wondered what you might have to say. About that.”

Greg stopped and quieted. His hands dropped down to his sides, clenched into fists. He’d managed to pace a bit, sway closer to where Mycroft sat stiffly on the most nondescript sofa in all of Britain. 

  
  
  


**AUGUST 1986**

Mycroft fell asleep that night with Greg in his arms and the remnants of his own come drying on his belly, the sharp tang of latex still unpleasant on the back of his tongue, but the smell of his own shampoo spicy in Greg’s hair where he’d buried his nose after pecking one final goodnight kiss to Greg’s sleeping mouth. Mycroft had probably never fallen asleep so easily, or so happily, as he did on Greg’s last night in Paris. He certainly would never fall asleep so contentedly after, not for decades.

  
  


**NEW YEARS EVE 2010 **

Greg cleared his throat after a full twenty seconds had passed in silence, Mycroft blinking a touch too rapidly at him from where he sat. Greg rocked on his heels. “You…okay?”

“What?” Mycroft snapped, then coughed. “Of course I am, I’m fine. Possibly having an acid flashback.”

That startled Greg into a laugh. “Have you  _ dropped acid  _ before?”

“No,” Mycroft said faintly. He looked up at Greg and seemed to focus, finally, before he spoke again. “You are…That is, I find you more exquisite now than I ever have, and this feels like a hallucination. I never thought…”

Greg rubbed a hand over his jaw, nodding along. “Neither did I. So, can I kiss you now?”

Mycroft outright  _ gasped _ , but seemed unable to answer, and so Greg moved forward, stepping so that he stood in front of Mycroft, their feet practically toe-to-toe. He reached down and cupped the side of Mycroft’s face, and Mycroft’s eyes slid shut. For a split second Greg seriously considered climbing into the man’s lap, but he felt that might send the message that this was all about sex or something, which it absolutely was not. It could never be  _ just  _ about that. Greg took the slightly less forward option and stooped down, bending his legs to squat down in front of Mycroft, hands on Mycroft’s knees. 

“Meet me halfway, here, sweetheart,” Greg said, and leaned in. Mycroft seemed to snap out of it, at that, and now  _ his  _ hand found the line of Greg’s jaw as he bent forward and Greg stretched up, and their lips pressed together so delicately, so softly, that Greg felt he could have cried with it. 

The kiss was sweet, a lip lock. Mycroft’s other hand found the other side of Greg’s face and held him still, held the kiss over a long, lingering moment before it broke softly. Greg squeezed the bony jut of Mycroft’s knees through the fine fabric of his suit as he opened his eyes to meet Mycroft’s stunned gaze. 

“ _ I love you, _ ” Mycroft said, voice shaking, as if it was hard for him to say but completely necessary as well. “I will never forgive myself for not telling you so twenty years ago.”

“Twenty four years,” Greg corrected, feeling like every single one of those years had fallen away. 

“I love you,” Mycroft said again, and kissed Greg again, this time with a quiet moan of lust and adoration and the insistent tugging of his hands where they had slid to Greg’s shoulders, and  _ now _ Greg climbed into his lap. 

A small eternity passed; Greg relearned the taste of Mycroft’s neck, introduced himself to the shorter, product-slick hair that had once curled with sweat under these same hands, less calloused back then. Mycroft couldn’t settle on where he wanted to touch, and so appeared to have decided to touch Greg everywhere, his hands squeezing at his hips, the outsides of his thighs, his ribs, trailing over his chest and up his neck and through his hair. 

Greg got Mycroft’s suit jacket shoved most of the way off his shoulders and his tie sloppily loosened, then only had enough patience to unfasten a couple of the buttons on Mycroft’s shirt before slipping his fingers inside just to check, to feel that Mycroft still only had a little smattering of fine chest hair, that his skin was still cool and smooth there. At this discovery and the flood of memory, Greg had to break their kiss to catch his breath and suck back the swell of emotion in his chest, threatening to pour from his throat in a sob. 

“Love you,” Greg murmured into Mycroft’s mouth. “Want you. Always. Mycroft,  _ always. _ ”

Mycroft made a sweet, perfect sound of agreement, then tipped Greg sideways into the sofa cushions. Greg lost track of all his words, after that.

**NEW YEARS DAY 2011**

Mycroft woke the next morning in the king sized bed at the center of the mostly-empty bedroom of his mostly-empty flat, to weak winter light filtering in through a crack between the curtains. Greg lay exactly as he had when Mycroft closed his eyes some time in the wee hours, face pressed to Mycroft’s chest, one arm curled around Mycroft’s ribs and the other stretched up, slipped under Mycroft’s shoulder with his hand close enough to touch Mycroft’s ruffled hair. He was asleep, and a bit heavy, but Mycroft wouldn’t move him for the world. 

They had not had sex. 

“I’m not officially separated yet,” Greg had said, pulling himself away as the kissing had become more and more heated, as their hips had begun to grind together where they were crammed onto the sofa in the lounge. “We should stop, slow down. I don’t want to start this the wrong way.”

“You’re going to leave?” Mycroft had asked, unable to keep the panic from his voice. 

“No,” Greg had replied quickly, soothingly, running a calming hand over Mycroft’s hair, then scritching his fingers into Mycroft’s scalp at the back of his head. “I just...Everything is such a mess, Mycroft. You don’t even know the half. I have a lot to tell you, because I want you to know what I’m up against. What it’s--what  _ I’m _ \--going to be like while I work through it. We should talk, and if we fall into bed together tonight? I know I’ll let it be the reason I put it off. It’ll  _ keep _ being the reason, because I swear to god, once I start touching you I won’t be able to stop.”

“Good lord,” Mycroft had murmured, closing his eyes, since he couldn’t hide the flush of his face and lean back into the gentle massage of Greg’s fingers in his hair at the same time. “You are probably...I suppose you’re right. We should. Talk.”

Mycroft had assessed the lost look in Greg’s eyes then, and decided to get a grip on himself and this situation, and take charge. Whatever Greg was about to say would clearly be painful for him, and when Mycroft jostled him up and off the sofa, Greg had practically shrunk into himself without the physical contact there to keep him warm. 

Mycroft led him upstairs, where he loaned Greg a pair of loose flannel pants in which to sleep, and changed into another pair and a soft t-shirt for himself, before guiding Greg quietly to bed, where Mycroft tugged back the covers and climbed in, opening his arms. Greg had crawled instantly into the embrace. Mycroft tucked the duvet around them both, and after a moment the story of Christmas Eve, and the subsequent horrors of the following days, had spilled out of Greg like a flood. Greg told the tale to Mycroft’s chest, and Mycroft held him through it. 

Mycroft had been-- _ was still _ \--devastated on Greg’s behalf. Though Greg said that Katherine was bearing the news of her biological father’s true identity with unusual calm for a girl of her age, Mycroft knew it broke Greg’s heart that the information had been shared at such a fraught time, and without Greg’s involvement in the decision to reveal it. The news that Patrick may have been the product of one of Tina Lestrade’s affairs was not particularly surprising to Mycroft, who had studiously not looked into the matter around the time Sherlock revealed Tina’s pregnancy to him, but Greg’s calm acceptance of the possibility did worry him. He knew that deep down, Greg was in agony over it. What would happen, should he turn out to have no biological claim over  _ either  _ of the children he loved so dearly? 

“I never formally adopted Katie,” Greg had said, despairing, the night before. “By the time we thought of it, she was old enough that we’d have had to explain it all to her, and Tina didn’t want to. I’ve always hated it, feeling I was hiding something from my kid. I should have pushed. I  _ should _ have done something.”

Mycroft had been at a loss as to what to say.  _ It will be alright  _ meant nothing in this situation, and so he had let Greg speak his fears, and for his part Mycroft soothed him with touch and quiet murmurs, promises that he would help him in any way he could. 

It had been a long night. Mycroft had always imagined that when Greg inevitably split from his wife, it would be that lady’s choice in the matter. He had never considered that Greg might do the leaving. Mycroft had imagined that they would have a conversation like the one they’d had the night before, but that it would be in some pub, Greg mourning and drinking, Mycroft acting as a supportive ear. He had never imagined that he would hold Greg through it, that their legs would tangle together, that he would tell Greg over and over,  _ I love you, I’m so sorry, I’ll help you, I promise.  _

Mycroft shifted, attempting to take a little pressure off his right hip, which gave him trouble sometimes if he laid flat for too long, and Greg stirred. 

“Mmph,” Greg huffed, pulling away enough to let Mycroft turn onto his side. His eyes squinted open. “Alright?”

“Quite,” Mycroft whispered, afraid to speak too loudly and shatter all of this, end it, cause himself to wake from this dream and find himself alone in this bed in this awful flat and find he imagined it all. “Just a little twinge. Right hip.”

“Old rugby injury, eh?” Greg joked sleepily, and Mycroft chuckled, tipping their foreheads together and draping his topmost arm over Greg’s body, turning what had been a sprawl into a close, warm cuddle. 

“Old MI6 injury,” Mycroft murmured. “I’ll tell you about it some time. Some of it is declassified, now.”

“I knew it,” Greg slurred, already falling asleep. “Knew it back then, you were getting into something messy. Something stupid. Y’r so smart, Mycroft—“ he yawned. “But bloody foolish about y’r own well bein’. W’re gonna fixit, love, don’t worry. I’ll keep you…” he didn’t finish his sentence, already asleep. 

Mycroft squeezed his eyes shut and breathed deeply for several heartbeats. Then, he kissed Greg Lestrade’s sleeping lips, and let himself drift off, too. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! At least, for this part of the series! There is a third fic in the works, nearly totally written. There are also a couple others planned out! Then there is an AU of this AU, where Mycroft never loses his suitcase ;)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains/will contain: mentions of infidelity and marital problems.


End file.
